Climate Change: The Move to Action (AOSS 480 // NRE 480)

1. Climate Change: The Move to Action(AOSS 480 // NRE 480) Richard B. Rood Cell: 301-526-8572 2525 Space Research Building (North Campus) rbrood@umich.edu http://aoss.engin.umich.edu/people/rbrood Winter 2010 January 12, 2010

2. Course News • NO CLASS on January 19th and 21st 2010 Next Week • We will make these up through project meetings. • Syllabus on web site

3. Class News • Ctools site: AOSS 480 001 W10 • On Line: 2008 Class • First Reading: Spencer Weart’s The Discovery of Global Warming http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html • And in particular two subsections • Carbon dioxide greenhouse effect: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm • Simple climate models http://www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm

4. Class News • Next Reading: Radiative Balance • Radiative Forcing of Climate Change: Expanding the Concept and Addressing Uncertainties (2005)Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC) Chapter 1 • http://www.nap.edu/books/0309095069/html • From class website • Executive Summary • Chapter 1: Radiative Forcing

5. Some Basic References • Rood Climate Change Class • Reference list from course • Rood Blog Data Base • Koshland Science Museum: Global Warming • IPCC (2007) Working Group 1: Summary for Policy Makers • IPCC (2007) Synthesis Report, Summary for Policy Makers • Osborn et al., The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years, Science, 311, 841-844, 2006

6. Today • What is (and is not) “science?” • How is (thinking about) the response to Global Warming organized? • Relation of climate change and other big ticket items. • Building the scientific basis of climate change.

7. Temperature Water Precipitation Evaporation Humidity Air Composition Air quality Aerosols Carbon dioxide Winds Clouds / Sunlight Droughts Floods Extreme Weather The impact of climate change is Water for Ecosystems Water for People Water for Energy Water for Physical Climate What parameters/events do we care about?

8. OBSERVATIONS THEORY EXPERIMENT Scientific Investigation Unification Integration Reduction Disciplinary

9. What is science, the scientific method? • We always have these attributes in the scientific method • Observations of some phenomenon • Predict behavior, what does the next observation might look like? • How do we affect “control?” • What is “control?” • We are seeking cause and effect. • Validation, can I predict the behavior? • Can I describe this well enough for someone else to repeat it?

10. Let “science” sit for a while.

11. Let’s suppose that global warming is real. • See what I did, I just said global warming instead of climate change.

12. What to do? What to do? • Let’s assume for a moment that we have convincing: • observations of climate change • attribution of climate change to increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere • predictions of climate change • need to respond to the climate change • How do we organize this problem?

13. Science, Mitigation, Adaptation Framework Adaptation is responding to changes that might occur from added CO2 Mitigation is controlling the amount of CO2 we put in the atmosphere.

14. Some definitions (more… ) • Mitigation: The notion of limiting or controlling emissions of greenhouse gases so that the total accumulation is limited. • Adaptation: The notion of making changes in the way we do things to adapt to changes in climate. • Resilience: The ability to adapt. • Geo-engineering: The notion that we can manage the balance of total energy of the atmosphere, ocean, ice, and land to yield a stable climate in the presence of changing greenhouse gases.

15. A point or two • Mitigation and adaptation have different characteristics. • A major one is the amount of time for them to be effective. • The long time scales of the climate change problem mean that advantages of controlling the increase of CO2 are realized many years after the action to control the increase. • Cause and effect are difficult to evaluate • Cost and benefit are difficult to evaluate • Adaptation is far easier to evaluate.

16. A point of tension • The discussion of mitigation and adaptation is one of the places where we see tension of beliefs. There was, for some time, the idea that if we talked about adaptation, then we would dismiss mitigation. Plus to talk about adaptation would be to admit there is climate change. • Only recently has adaptation has into discourse. • What about global geo-engineering?

17. So far we are developing the language to talk about climate change. • We have some introduction of the scientific basis of climate change. • We have a framework for organizing how to respond to climate change.

18. Climate Change Relationships

19. Climate Change Relationships • We have a clear relationship between energy use and climate change. The build up of carbon dioxide is directly related to combustion of fossil fuels: coal, oil, natural gas. CLIMATE CHANGE ENERGY

20. World primary energy supply in 1973 and 2003 * Source: International Energy Agency 2005 megaton oil equivalent

21. Energy and Economic Success The Bottomless Well: Huber and Mills (2005)

22. Climate Change Relationships • Consumption // Population // Energy ENERGY CLIMATE CHANGE POPULATION CONSUMPTION SOCIETAL SUCCESS

23. Climate Change Relationships • Consumption // Population // Energy ENERGY CLIMATE CHANGE POPULATION SOCIETAL SUCCESS CONSUMPTION

24. Climate Change Relationships • Climate change is linked to consumption. • The economy depends on us consuming • Consuming generates the waste that causes climate change. • The consumption that has set us on this road of global warming has been by a relatively small percentage of the population. • Wealth is an important variable. • Hence, social equity is an issue.

25. Some challenges • If it was not clear when you woke up this morning, climate change touches every element of society. • It sits in relationship with some other fundamental societal challenges. • Solutions will be required to infiltrate all elements of society. • What sort of things scale to all society?

26. Belief System Values Perception Cultural Mandate Societal Needs What are the pieces which we must consider?(what are the consequences) ...???... Security Food Environmental National Societal Success Standard of Living POLICY ECONOMICS ENERGY RELIGION LAW SOCIAL JUSTICE “BUSINESS” PUBLIC HEALTH information flow: research, journals, press, opinion, … SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE

27. That was the introduction for the course. • No matter what your discipline background might be, do you see yourself in this pass through the problem? • There is not a simple “solution;” we will not “solve” this problem and walk away from it. • I assert: we will be required to manage the climate. • Do you see ways forward?

28. Let’s Build up the Scientific Foundation • Which means lets build up • The observational foundation • The theory foundation • The validation foundation

29. Increase of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Primary increase comes from burning fossil fuels – coal, oil, natural gas Data and more information

30. Web links to some CO2 data • NOAA/ESRL Global Monitoring Division • Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gas • Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide • Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center • Recent Greenhouse Gas Concentrations • NOAA/PMEL CO2 and Ocean

31. What are the mechanisms for production and loss of CO2?

32. About carbon dioxide (CO2) CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere. Burning changes some organic carbon to inorganic carbon. In ocean transfer of CO2 between CO2 and calcium carbonate and carbonic acid.In some problems CO2 treated as conserved because of time scales of transport and chemical inertness.For the climate problem CO2 in the environment is increasing. It takes a long time for it to be removed, but there is a lot of cycling.

33. Carbon and Terrestrial Exchange

34. Carbon and Oceanic Exchange

35. Let’s look to the past • This is called “paleoclimatology.” • NOAA’s Paleoclimatology Branch • Ice Core Portal • Vostok Data • Petit, Nature, 1999

36. Times of low temperature have glaciers, ice ages (CO2 <~ 200 ppm) • Times of high temperature associated with CO2 of < 300 ppm Bubbles of gas trapped in layers of ice give a measure of temperature and carbon dioxide 350,000 years of Surface Temperature and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) at Vostok, Antarctica ice cores This has been extended back to > 700,000 years • During this period, temperature and CO2 are closely related to each other

37. It’s been about 20,000 years since the end of the last ice age • There has been less than 10,000 years of history “recorded” by humans (and it has been relatively warm) Bubbles of gas trapped in layers of ice give a measure of temperature and carbon dioxide 350,000 years of Surface Temperature and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) at Vostok, Antarctica ice cores • During this period, temperature and CO2 are closely related to each other

38. CO2 2100 460 ppm So what are we worried about? CO2 2010 390 ppm 350,000 years of Surface Temperature and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) at Vostok, Antarctica ice cores • Carbon dioxide is, because of our emissions, much higher than ever experienced by human kind • Temperature is expected to follow • New regimes of climate behavior? • Humans are adapted to current climate behavior. • The change is expected to happen rapidly (10 -100 years, not 1000’s)

39. Assignment 1: Describe this figure. Write a detailed figure caption for this figure. Length no longer than 1 page. What is shown? What is known? Is there information that can be inferred? The figure can be found at Koshland Science Museum: Global Warming

40. What about the CO2 increase?

41. New Regimes of Climate Behavior? NEW AGE? • Differences for the Future (100-200 years) • ~100 ppm CO2 (Already) • > 200-300 ppm CO2 certain • ~ xx C polar T difference • ~ xx C global average T difference CURRENT (Temperate) Behavior of water; Phase change • Differences from Past (20,000 years) • ~100 ppm CO2 • ~ 20 C polar T difference • ~ 5 C global average T difference ICE AGE Time gradient of CO2 changes, 2 orders of magnitude (100 times) larger.

42. Some Basic References • Rood Climate Change Class • Reference list from course • Rood Blog Data Base • Koshland Science Museum: Global Warming • IPCC (2007) Working Group 1: Summary for Policy Makers • IPCC (2007) Synthesis Report, Summary for Policy Makers • Osborn et al., The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years, Science, 311, 841-844, 2006

43. Next time: Fundamental Science of Climate